1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic transaction apparatus provided in a bank, etc., or provided away from the bank for effecting a customer transactions such as drawing out a customer's money in cash, depositing his money, making an entry of an amount of a transaction to a bankbook, and transferring and changing savings.
2. Description of the Prior Art
An automatic transaction apparatus operated in banks, etc., is adapted to transact any business of a customers by the operation of the customer himself and to have a display unit disposed in the front of the apparatus for displaying text and illustrations for guiding the operation of the customer.
Such automatic bank transaction apparatuses, each including a display for displaying text and illustrations for guiding customer's operation, are disclosed for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,641,497, 3,657,521, 3,697,729, 3,761,682, and 3,876,864. A display unit of these automatic bank transaction apparatuses is simply adapted to display the selection and designation of the kinds of transactions, text for guiding the customer's operation, an amount of money, and a notice to a customer, but are not adapted to display items corresponding to the positions of operating switches for use in the selection of the kinds of transactions by a customer, and text for compliments to a customer, requests for the next operation to the apparatus by a customer, and checks and designation on a transaction result by the apparatus.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,134,537 discloses a terminal unit with which a customer transacts business with a bank in a stepwise manner while observing instructions written on a display unit.
The terminal unit has a plurality of general-purpose operating switches provided adjacent to a screen of the display unit, and displays a text indicative of a function of the operating switch at each step of a transaction on the screen at a position corresponding to a location of the operating switch in each step of the transaction.
However, the terminal unit is not adapted to set any kind of transactions which the terminal unit can process during the observation of the display by an operator or to be informed of the contents of any fault when it is produced and of how to process the fault.
In addition, U.S. Pat. No. 4,438,326 describes another automatic transaction apparatus having a display unit fulfilling the same junction as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,134,537.
The display unit of the automatic transaction apparatus displays not only a text of an instruction to guide the operation by a customer in each step of a transaction but also the cause of a trouble when it is produced as well as items needed to process the trouble for enabling the recovery of the apparatus.
However, the apparatus is also not adapted to freely set the kinds of transactions which can be processed by the apparatus in accordance with a display screen of the display unit. It is further adapted to have operating switches arranged adjacent to the display screen for use in selecting and designating items displayed on the display unit.
A prior art automatic transaction apparatus which is capable of freely setting the kinds of transactions which can be processed by the apparatus sets the processsing so as to start or stop the transactions by means of operating switches arranged on an internal operating board incorporated in the apparatus. The internal operating board is provided inside a housing of the apparatus so as not to be directly operatable externally. In operating the internal switches, a portion of the housing of the apparatus is opened by an operator using a key to permit the internal operating board to be operated. This complicates the setting of transactions to be processed as well as the operation needed to alter the transactions. Furthermore, in additionally giving a function to the automatic transaction apparatus to enable it to also process a transaction of another kind, the arrangement of the switches on the internal operating board, the number of display lamps, and the disposition of the lamps gets to be too complicated, and thus another internal operating board must be employed instead. This makes the operation needed to improve the functions of the automatic transaction apparatus complex as well as costly.
Furthermore, the prior art automatic transaction apparatus having operating switches disposed adjacent to the display screen for use in selecting and designating items displayed on the display unit is adapted to display an item selected or designated corresponding to each of the respective locations of the operating switches. This is done to inform an operator of which item is selected or designated when the operating switch is depressed.
However, such a display effected by positioning an item corresponding to a position of one of the operating switches is limited such that the display position of an item corresponds to the position of the operating switch, and the number of items being displayed is also limited to the number of operating switches, whereby many items being selected or designated are prevented from being displayed on one display screen. This results in an increased number of exclusive operated switches required to select or designate items, whereby a customer operating part of the automatic transaction apparatus gets to be more complicated and the operation of the apparatus by a customer is becomes more troublesome.
In addition, the automatic transaction apparatus disclosed in the above U.S. Pat. No. 4,438,326 is adapted to display the cause of any trouble using a code. Accordingly, an operator can not know the cause of the trouble and its position without decoding the displayed code.